Atelier Bow-Wow: Tokyo Anatomy

Archinect features an interview with Yoshiharu Tsukamoto of Atelier Bow-wow.

"Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, along with his partner Momoyo Kaijima, is one half of the Tokyo-based Atelier Bow-wow. Founded in 1992, Atelier Bow-wow is one the most unique practices of its generation... Bow-Wow embraces a kind of accidental urban vernacular, using their research/work to chronicle the complex - and often unforgiving - logic of the city. Acting as urban detectives, Bow-wow has catalogued the agility of Tokyo's fabric to produce radical programmatic collisions (Made in Tokyo) and nuanced micro architectures (Pet Architecture).

These observations have figured heavily in their own work, as documented in recent publications Post-Bubble City and Graphic Anatomy. Armed with the understanding of architecture's maneuverability in Tokyo, Bow-wow posits a practice engaged in what they call "lively space." This is a kind of space that is willingly infected with the accidents of site and program rather than trying to control or sterilize them.

Yoshiharu Tsukamoto recently completed teaching a studio at Harvard GSD and runs a lab at Tokyo Institute of Technology.

I caught up with Tsukamoto in Toronto at the TD Centre and later in Tokyo at Bow-Wow HQ to talk pets, public space, stairs, zoning, metabolists, and manga kissa. - Mason White

Part two of this conversation is available in Mark Magazine #8."

W: http://archinect.com/features/article.php?id=56468_0_23_0_C